Myth– “You’re overpaid”

 Bullshit.  Top to bottom bullshit.  You are not paid 120% of “operators/elects/mechs at peer companies on the north slope”.  This isn’t even stretching the truth, this one is a bold faced lie. And a very blatant, intentional deception.  When you compare your hourly rate to other NORTH SLOPE operators that are actually employed by the unit operator you are most certainly not overpaid.  Santos tops out at $72.03 and with a brand new ‘tech 1’ starting at $61. Their bonus can be up to 18% with a 7.5% 401K match.  Hilcorp WOA tops at $66.49 and 5% board pay and they are still eligible for bonus– something the HR people straight up lied to you about.  So let me ask you this… given that Santos and Hilcorp are our only true north slope peers—- are you overpaid by 20%, are you overpaid at all? 

So how, oh how, did our HR people decide we make 20% too much?  Well that’s easy!  They decided we make too much, then they went out and found data to support that. That’s why they included the refinery guys that get to go home every night, get to attend their kid’s basketball games, have a beer after dinner or even smoke a bowl if that’s their thing.  But even that wasn’t enough to drag the average down, so they threw in some pipeline controllers (Alyeska and Harvest) who are home every night in Anchorage or Kenai, but it STILL wasn’t low enough, so they grabbed some random-ass service companies-  you know the ones– the ones you worked at for 4 years before you even had enough experience to get an AES or VECO job.  No joke, they’re comparing your 15 years of unit operator facility electrician/mech/tech pay to a freakin’ Doyon electrician.  

So there you have it.  NO you are not overpaid, your pay is very much ‘middle of the pack’ for “north slope unit operator” pay.  Do you think our company would ever commission a study to compare our VP’s pay to that of a Schlumberger’s regional VP’s pay or a Doyon HR reps pay? How about Doyon’s CEO to our CEO?  These things would never happen-  but these dishonest crooks went out of their way to cherry pick data in an effort to convince you that you’re the overpaid one.  

PS- it only gets worse when you look at benefits… Santo, Marathon, Hilcorp, Alyeska… they ALL give their new hires ‘years of service’ credit for PTO, so if you had 11 years industry experience before you hire with Alyeska you get the same PTO benchmark as an employee with 11 years at Alyeska.  BTW, Our company actually does that too….just not for those dirty hourly employees on the north slope. 

If there are errors or you have more accurate information- please submit it to me, I will happily post it and note the correction. Unlike our HR department we care deeply about the truth and intend to provide you with accurate information.